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During the past two months, I have personally dealt with journalists in print, TV, and radio. Most of the stuff that ends up on the American news is a load of crap. Most of them seem to have the story already written, and they are just looking to fill in quotes. War zones is not the only place that happens though. (Although you might read Ann Garrels' Naked In Baghdad or Jon Lee Anderson's pieces for the New Yorker to get a glimpse of how a lot of news organizations covered the war.)

you got steered to the SCO thing really quickly---no chit chat to size you up as a credible source---just a name and a quote?

Yeah, although I did have one of those enormous ApacheCon badges with the speaker ribbon, so she may have assumed I was important enough. Her story seemed to be to get the "buzz" about SCO at ApacheCon and Comdex, but she just didn't find the buzz she was looking for.

In any case, if you do not want to be quoted, do not even talk to journalists.

That's good advice, but I never really thought of being quoted as a bad thing. Like most people, I would like to think that people are interested in my opinion. After this, I'm more inclined to take your advice, though, and avoid them altogether.